Justin is 40, an age where a lot of people in the IT game worry about being over the hill and unemployable. But Justin's little video talk should give you hope -- whether you're a mature college student, have a stalled IT career or are thinking about a career change but want to keep working with computers and IT in general. It seems that there are decent IT-related jobs out there even if you're not a youngster; and even if you didn't start working with computers until you were in your 20s or 30s.

Youth has the edge on age when it comes to body fitness. However, age has the edge on youth when it comes to experience. By the time you get to 40, you've made a ton of mistakes and have (hopefully) learned from them. You know what works and what doesn't. Youth likes rolling its eyes at Age and running headlong down a path that Age says won't work. Sometimes Youth succeeds, but more than likely Age is proven right.

Huge bellies, size 36 pants, and being out of breath from going up a flight of stairs are the results of being over 40. They are the results of being out of shape. Even wrinkles at 40 to a certain extent are the result of lifestyle choices.

I was in good shape in my 20s too and it would be a lie to say I "feel" better now than I did then. Personally I wouldn't mind having my 25 year old body back but even at 50 I've still got more speed and stamina that a lot of twenty somethings. And frankly, learning ha

I'm turning 49 in a month. I take care of all the end user support in our organization. My predecessor retired from his position, and I'm planning on doing the same in 11 years. I'm not socially awkward and have a lot of life experience, which makes it easier for me to teach people who might otherwise be put off by me being a "young pup".
Health wise, I had a wake up call in my early 40s and have lost weight with diet and weightlifting, gave up smoking, and am now an amateur powerlifter..

I'm well over forty and I'd say none of those things apply (well, perhaps a little balder). I'm not as strong as I was at 25 but I'm not weak either, and I can go up many flights of stairs without winding... basically all of those things are a warning that you should stay active.

But that's beside the point, the biggest problem you list, the inability to learn new things, is what happens when you stop learning long enough. The longer you go without doing new things, the harder it is to get back into it...

But I have to add that all of the hype is plain old wrong if you want to be a career IT security specialist. Hacking, or actually performing a penetration test, is a very small portion of the job. Seems like all of the hype around coding currently to try and flood the market with people thinking they can "hack" to reduce wages may be happening here. I don't know if that's true or not, but seems reasonable given the treatment of "coders" lately.

I was also confused at the "people over 40 can't find jobs" stuff, because after I hit 40 my desirability went way up. Maturity, especially in IT security, is a well sought after trait.

The Wunderkind gets all the "sexy" jobs of performing audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests.

Well no, this is not really true. Younger IT Security people are doing a lot of other things. Trying to sneak in doors behind people, drop flash drives to see who plugs them in, copy/paste HTML code to make fake phishing campaigns too. To the horror of many, they find that they have to write reports on their findings and actually communicate with people. They have to make recommendations, and be absolutely sure of their facts with documentation, documentation, and even more documentation.

People who get into security for a paycheck are not hackers, they're security professionals. Hackers are people who do it on their own time, for its own sake. It's not tinkering if you're getting paid for it. Just a semantic nuisance that annoys me, as a non-hacker, and a security professional, but also as someone who has been around REAL hackers for 20 years. If I was independently wealthy, I would not spend my time "hacking," because I am not a hacker. Security is a job to me.

It became too late to become an ethical hacker when the FBI started bullying people into working for them. "Here, come disrupt your life no matter the consequences to you or your family, or we'll destroy your life." Screw that. Some fields can't pay enough to be worth their risk. When story after story about the people who can hack involve their being bullied by their government, it's just not worth it to learn those skills.

Or at least this is my impression. If I'm wrong, then it might help if elect